The start, as usual, with lots of bad performances must be agonising for you guys to sit through. Is it all worth it at the end?

Well, the answer is yes, it is worthwhile. Is it fun doing it? No. It is becoming increasingly like torture, but you have to give most of the people who come in at least three or four minutes, but it has gotten harder over the years. What’s amazing, even after seven seasons — and we’ve had some shockingly bad people this year — is how much they still believe that they’re right and I’m wrong and they got more argumentative with me this year. All I’m trying to do is help them. But I think that you have to have that mix within the show. I think that if it was completely sanitised, the audition process, that everybody came in and they were just competent, I think it would probably be the most boring show on TV. So, it’s fun for me to watch. It is torture for me to do it.

So, seven American Idols are up for Grammys this year, including Kelly Clarkson and some other non-winners like Ace Young. On the flipside, you have two winners, Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard, who were just dropped by their label. What do you make of this kind of dispirit success?

I think it’s a reflection on the unpredictability of the record business where, fortunately, we have it right more times than we have it wrong. But, I’ve run a record label for 25 years and the one thing I know about this business is it is horribly unpredictable. Ruben certainly would have been one of the ones you would have backed at the beginning to be on his third or fourth album now, and it just didn’t work out. There’s no scientific or logical way of explaining why that happened. We are a reality show and what happens at the end is also reality. You have to take the knocks with the good things. It’s literally one of those things.

What changes do you think we’ll see this year?

Well, 90 per cent of what happened on the show last year was very good. But we are completely and utterly reliant on who walks in the door in terms of the quality of the contestants. So, most of our focus this year was to make sure that we got a better top 12 and a more interesting top 12 than what we got last year. I’m pretty certain that we have that this year.

There will be a new set, which will be good. They tried a couple of bits and pieces in the Hollywood rounds of having people play instruments, which wasn’t particularly a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t think it made too much difference because we were lucky enough that the contestants were better, and that was the most important thing. On a show like Idol, I don’t think you necessarily want to make change for the sake of change.

Do you have any personal favourites from this year?

I’m not going to name any names because I always get into trouble for doing that. I might do it in a couple of week’s time though. There are luckily three or four very strong guys and three or four very strong girls this year. It’s probably going to be one of the most open competitions we’ve ever had. I can’t call out a winner at this stage. In my mind I think I have an idea who could make the finals, but I’m not going to give anything away at the moment.

Do you have an exit date planned for yourself with Idol, and do you think the show could survive if you leave?

His Day Will Come! Well, nothing is going to last forever. I think the exit point, to a point, is determined by the public who eventually are going to get sick to death of me, if they haven’t already. I’d always, in my mind, kind of thought I would go up till the end of my contract, which would mean two more seasons after this one, which would have made it nine in total and nine years is probably enough to inflict on anyone. So that’s what I sort of have in my mind. Can the show exist without me? Absolutely. It’ll probably get better.

Your style analysis often seems spot on with the contestants. What’s the recipe to get the “rock star” look?

Well, I’d be lying if I said first impressions aren’t important. If somebody walks in with a sense of style, it means a lot. At the same time, when someone walks in in a hideous outfit, regardless of what they’re going to sing, you’re put off that person. I’m not a style expert — far from it. That’s why we have a lot of people on the show, towards the latter part, to help them with their style and image and everything else. It still comes down to obviously your singing voice. If you try and sum up what star quality is, it is a sense of style, a sense of knowing who you are, a sense of being an individual and obviously having a good voice. So, it’s one part of the package. It’s not the most important part, but it’s one part of it.